QRP by the River

I haven’t been able to get out to do any portable operating in while. I had a few hours this morning before we headed out of town to spend the weekend with family, so I thought I do a quick trip to nearby Upper Schuylkill Valley Park. The forecast was calling for rain, so my original plan was to operate from my truck with my antenna mounted on my bicycle rack.

When I arrived at the park, it was a mild 55 degrees (

A conveniently-placed bulletin board served as my antenna support.

) with no wind and no rain. I figured there won’t be many more days like this for a while, so I decided to head further into the park and operate from a picnic table next to the Schuylkill River. My antenna was a 30-foot vertical wire fed through a 9:1 unun. I used some nylon cable ties to secure my 31-foot Jackite pole to a sign post. My rig was my trusty YouKits HB-1B.

I started out on 20 meters. The band was jam packed with stations working the CQ DX Contest. I’m not a big fan of the quick contest-type exchanges so, after working PJ2T, I moved down to the more peaceful 30 meter band.

WB3GCK operating by the Schuylkill River

W9ZN was booming into Pennsylvania so I gave him a call. I’ve worked Bill several times before from a variety of portable locations and it was nice to work him again. We had a nice chat until the band started fading.

Next, I moved down to 40 meters and called CQ. W2ZRA gave me a call from Eastern Long Island. We had a nice rag chew. Kevin was running 50 watts and I gave him a 589 signal report. During the QSO, he reduced his power to 5 watts and was still about 569.

After that, I needed to pack up and head home. My timing was impeccable; it started raining a few minutes after I got home.

It was a very brief but enjoyable morning to be operating outdoors by the river.